The last few years are hard for me to sum up. It isn't so much as to how I've grown as a person as it is about how much faith I've lost in the process. And from first-hand experience, losing faith is not easy (and not just religiously). To those who have family close to them and who are close with their family members, the only piece of advice I have is not to take it for granted. For me, familial relations have been nothing but an uphill battle for me. A lot of it comes in the context of sugar-coated truths and empty promises made. As a result of these things, I just stopped caring.

After college, I got tired of being told what "responsibility" was and how it was oh-so-important for me to be a "productive member of society." I realized quickly how those quips were all just a manifestation of how someone else believed, how, under that advice I would be living up to someone else's expectations. This, of course, after family only came to me when they wanted or needed something. All other times I was virtually non-existent.

Enter Azlynn. I have briefly described my closeness with him in the past, how he is remarkably more real to me than many of the real things in this world. I go on and on about him for my own reasons, just like anyone would with someone or something they feel very close to. Azlynn is the single-most important figure of my creative intellect. He is the only thing I have in this world, so much that I don't care whether or not I leave my mark on it with him.

What's really sad to me, more than anything, is the absolute neglect my family has for anything I've done or attempted to accomplish. Even there, it seems like failure is rewarded more than success, just like it is in the real world. I just want to know what the hell happened to everything I was taught to believe in and why I'm finding year after year that all of those things have meant utter nonsense.

I suppose this is why it's much easier for me to write about Azlynn as an adult. His circumstances are different, but what he feels about the world in the wake of them are very similar to my own.